A portion of the Chautauqua County Highway Map for 1938 showing the roads in the town of Ellicott and adjacent areas. The red indicates a road in the state system. The rest are either county or town roads. The solid black indicates a hard-surfaced county road. The other roads are either gravel or plain, which would be a dirt road.

By Karen E. Livsey

Ellicott Town Historian

Spring is here.

And so are the potholes.

Few streets and roads are immune to these reminders that spring is here. The brick streets in Jamestown seldom have real potholes but many others streets and roads have them. Just as we learn where they are, they get filled but often return awhile later in the season.

But what did generations before us contend with? That brought out a few maps. I happened to have the Chautauqua County Highway map issued on Jan. 1, 1938, and the 1950 Chautauqua County Highway map.

So what will those tell us about potholes? Not a whole lot of specific information about potholes but both maps show which roads are hard surfaced, gravel or plain. The 1938 map has the roads in the state system in red. On the 1950 map these are in heavier black lines.

Different symbols indicate which roads are in the county system and which are town roads. The cities of Dunkirk and Jamestown do not show most of the differences within their city limits.

The number of miles in the state system in 1938 is 298 miles. I am thinking that these are paved roads. By 1950 there had been one mile added for a total of 299 miles.

The county system of roads was broken down into types of roads. There were 339 miles of proposed or completed hard-surface roads in 1938. Again exactly what the hard surface was, I don’t know, but by 1950 there were 485 miles of hard-surfaced roads in the county system.

The other county roads were gravel roads. Of those gravel roads in 1938, there were 152 miles, either proposed or completed, 16 feet wide, some plain and some oiled. There were 180 miles of 12 feet wide gravel roads with 88 miles completed and 92 miles proposed.

That was a total of 671 miles of county roads proposed or completed. By 1950, the proposed and completed county roads totaled 598 miles. But the hard surfaced miles jumped from 339 to 485. In 1950 some of the gravel roads were 16 to 20 feet wide but the miles had decreased to 28 and the other roads had become 12 to 14 feet wide and had decreased in number of miles to 85.

Looks like the county had been busy changing a number of gravel roads to hard surface roads.

But then the separate towns also had roads, either graveled or plain. Those are indicated on the maps but no mileage is given. But looking at the maps there are many roads that are just graveled or plain. These are the roads that presented even more problems than potholes.

Any uneven part of the road could hold water as the snow melted and the frost left the ground or the spring rains came, creating not just potholes, but mudholes. Often the entire roadway could become nothing but mud. Ruts though the mud added to the problems. Whether it was an ox cart, a horse and buggy, or a Model T Ford, mud could bring many modes of transportation to a halt.

At this point in the town of Ellicott there are just over 51 miles of town roads with only one short road not paved. The city of Jamestown has about 51 miles of brick streets now. Regardless of which municipality is responsible for the roads, potholes appear and we learn to avoid as many as possible.

Even though we all bemoan the occurrence of potholes let us be thankful we don’t become mired in mud while trying to go from one place to another on today’s roads.